First 50:
51. Deep Duck Trouble starring Donald Duck Game Gear
52. Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX 3DS*
53. Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush Wii U
54. Retro Game Challenge DS
55. Pop Island Paperfield DSiWare
56. Stranded Kids GBC
57. Bomberman 64 N64
58. Inazuma Eleven DS
59. Bust-a-Move 4 DC
60. Sega Bass Fishing DC
61. Mario Party 8 Wii
62. Sonic Chaos Game Gear
63. Sonic the Hedgehog SMS
64. Jet Force Gemini N64
65. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Wii U DL
66. Kirby's Ghost Trap SNES
67. Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon GBC *NEW*
68. Dark Arms: Beast Buster 1999 NGPC *NEW*
69. LittleBigPlanet PSVita Vita *NEW*
70. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat GC *NEW*
71. Märchen Adventure Cotton 100% SFC *NEW*
OK, guys, prepare for lots of scrolling....
Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon
Goemon is a series by Konami which features a ton of games, most of which never left Japan. It's commonly claimed that there were 4 western releases - Legend of the Mystical Ninja for SNES, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon for N64, Mystical Ninja 2 Starring Goemon for N64 and Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon for Game Boy. Unique naming isn't the series strongest point in the west.
However, if you live in Europe, there were actually 5 games in the series released. In addition to the 4 already mentioned, there is also Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon for the Game Boy. A different one. It has the same name, but it is not the same game. This is less of an issue than you might think, because this game was only released as part of Konami GB Collection Volume 3 for Game Boy Colour in Europe. In Japan, this version is known as 'Ganbare Goemon: Sarawareta Ebisumaru!'
In the game, Goemon's buddy Ebisumaru is kidnapped and out hero goes on an adventure to rescue him. The game plays mostly like the Famicom entries in the series from my understanding, or if you're more familiar with the western entries, the more like the village areas from the SNES game. Goemon can attack with his pipe, or, if you get a lucky cat, by throwing coins (unlike other games in the series, you don't lose money by doing this). Goemon can move up and down the screen beat-em-up style as well as left and right. You can also find items to speed Goemon up (he's incredibly slow without them) as well as armour to block hits. This is useful, as if you get hit in a way that makes you lose health you lose all your power ups and become slow and have a short weapon again.
Missions are not totally linear, and sometimes you need to backtrack with keys or talk to specific people to progress. The game mostly features you attacking enemies whilst walking about, but as you progress there are more and more platforming sections, which are a pain as you have to take into account vertical positioning too. Falling in costs a life, and if you lose 3 you have to start the stage over. There are about 10 stages and some are pretty tough.
Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon is fun enough, but it's also pretty lacking. By this point in time in the west, Goemon had come a long way, and the gameplay here feels like a massive step back (that said, it would have been a much earlier release in Japan). There are no alternate characters, very basic play mechanics and fairly minimal story (although as a GB action game, it's kinda nice that there is any). I enjoyed it ok, but it's not a must own by any means.
Dark Arms: Beast Buster 1999
Dark Arms: Beast Buster is an action RPG of sorts for the Neo Geo Pocket Colour. It's short and pretty easy, but it's quite fun. You play as a hero who made a pact to enter the demon world to make a super powerful gun or something like that? Like many Neo Geo Pocket games, the story was not a strong point, although this time the translation didn't seem as horrible as most games on the system.
Your goal at the start of the game is to power up your arsenal of weaponry. To do this requires several things - first of all you need to find eggs which can be used as the weapon base. These are hidden around the world, and whilst the game gives you a few, most require finding them in secret places. Then you need an Ohm, which is like a weapon spirit, in order to fuse with the egg and create a weapon. These can range from standard stuff like pistols and machine guns, to more organic weapons like tentacle melee weapons or doppelganger clones. Lastly, you need to power up the weapon by evolving it and giving it experience. Experience is easy, just finish levels with the weapo equipped. As the weapons level up it becomes more powerful. To evolve the weapon is a different process altogether though.
From the start of the game, you have a weapon called the 'catcher'. If you defeat an enemy with it, you capture it's spirit. These spirits can then be used to raise a weapons evolution meter, and when it's full they can evolve into something more powerful. For example, your shotgun goes from shooting 2 bullets at 30 degree angles to shooting 3, with one heading straight forward. Some weapons can evolve in different ways as well, with the pistol able to become a machine gun, laser gun or shotgun. If you 'feed' the weapon an elemental spirit, it becomes charged with that element too. Stronger enemies obviously tend to give mroe evo points, and weapons can sometimes evolve up to 3 times. I didn't manage to max anything by the end of the game though, but it didn't matter, because the shotgun was broken anyway.
The game is very short - there are only 5 main levels, with day and night variations of each. On odd occassions you might need to do something in the day then come back at night or vice versa, but it's not too complicated - the game is pretty straight forward and linear.
The plot has a few (very obvious) twists and the boss battles can be challenging towards the end, but overall this is a pretty simple blasting game with some RPG tropes and I had fun. It's worth the afternoon it'll take to beat it, but don't spend a fortune on it. There's just not enough here to justify that.
LittleBigPlanet PSVita
I've never played a LittleBigPlanet game before now, and frankly, I wasn't convinced I'd like it anyway. Sackboy is cute enough and the game looks like it can be fun, but everything I'd seen made the platforming look very loose and unrefined, and I'll be honest, I'd rather play a well-made campaign built by actual game designers than the vast majority of user-generated crap that's out there.
So when I got the game along with my Vita and 6 other games a few years back, it's sat on my self for a while as a low priority to play. However, I finally got around to it, so let's see how it is. First of all, a disclaimer that will probably upset many - I'm only going to talk about the game's single player campaign - no multiplayer, no custom levels (I'll get around to playing some soon, honest!) - just the game's premade stages.
The game has a very nice style right from the outset. I loved the tutorial/introduction stage that used in game mechanics and gameplay to announce develop names and introduce the controls at the same time. Also, it had Stephen Fry who is amazing, so there's that. The visual design was solid throughout, and I liked the worlds they had built with what I assume is the same item sets individual creators can use. The haunted houses felt dark and spooky, the circus felt bold and triumphant and the futuristic levels looked very distopian sci-fi, and I liked it a lot. The music was also spectacular, and I really enjoyed some of the themes. The circus world has music that reminded me a ton of Patchwork Heroes on PSP, which is a good thing.
Then onto the game itself - I found the story to be pretty charming, with an evil puppeteer taking over a planet and you finding some buddies and going to stop him. I liked being introduced to new characters each world too, and they were likeable enough, although - and I mean no offense by this - they were very....American feeling, especially for a franchise that originated in Britain. They had that modern-ish American cartoon feeling which I'm not always a big fan of. The stages themselves were also well crafted - the game definitely is not the most refined in it's platforming, but it's better than I expected, and I feel like the level designs were fairly accomodating to that fact.
The game also introduces stage gimmicks such as vehicles to ride on, a grappling hook to swing about, mitts to throw items around and more. These were all fun to use and I looked forward to the 'gimmicky' stages more than the normal stages in general. Not that they were bad mind, but the gimmicky stages bought to mind some of Nintendo's best stuff (if a bit less polished) like the DKC series and the newer Mario titles, where they like to introduce something new for a stage or two, then ditch it.
The game was an early release for Vita (was it a launch title?) and so it unfortunately tries to use the Vita's 'unique' features. Stuff that uses the touch screen isnt so bad, but I still think the Vita's capactive touch screen is very imprecise and it was especially apparent during unlockable mini games where my presses on the screen didn't register fairly often. The read touch pad is used as well. The rear touch pad can fuck right off - it is not only completely useless for gaming, it also gets in the way massively - I kept activating blocks by accident because my fingers would rest on the outside of the rear touch pad - theres no space for my hands otherwise. The touch pad is a terrible idea and Vita games would be much better for ignoring it entirely. Lastly, on some occasions the game uses the vitas tilt sensors - and I had a hell of a time getting them to work properly. I got through, but often I had to tilt to ridiculous angles to get the response I wanted. I don't know if I was poorly calibrated or what, but I wasn't keen on using the control, thats for sure. This might sound biased, but from my experience, Nintendo's resistive touch screens and far superior tilt sensors are much better for playing games than the equivalents in my Vita, which is a shame.
The game runs at about 5 hours long, and then the credits are probably also about 5 hours long (in all seriousness, the credits are like 20 minutes or something crazy like that). The gameplay is fun and interesting and I enjoyed my time with the game. It's at it's best when it's utilizing quirky and 'gimmicky' level mechanics, and at it's worst when it's utilizing quirky and gimmicky control schemes. I had a blast with the game overall, and it's one of the cheapest Vita games right now, so you should definitely pick it up and give it a go - even if the custom content creation stuff doesn't interest you much, like me.
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is a Gamecube game I've been meaning to pick up for a while. It arrived at a time when I had limited income, so although it looked fun, it took a backseat to other games at the time. Recently I had a chance to pick it up cheap, and I already have the DK Bongos for Donkey Konga anyhow, so I gave it a go.
And wow, what a blast. For a game that is played with such an imprecise control scheme, it's incredibly intuitive and surprisingly accurate. I had a few issues with jumping (achieved by hitting both drums together) when I was trying to change direction because I hit two drums slightly two fast but it rarely caused any issues. The swimming controls kinda suck though, but you get used to them eventually.
As mentioned, DK runs by hitting the left or right drum to go in that direction. Hitting both makes him jump, and clapping (or tapping the side of the drum, which will stop your hands hurting as quickly for sure) makes him clap which has many effects - the shock waves stun enemies and pop bubbles and other such things and can also trigger monkeys to throw you around if they're near by. A smaller shockwave represents DK's reach (and it varies depending on how far the camera is zoomed - DK has very stretchy arms in this game) and enemies can be defeated or bananas grabbed if they're inside this range when you clap. There are also sections where you need to beat the crap out of enemies which you do by pounding both drums - it's very natural and fun.
The game has 17 worlds consisting of 2 stages and a boss fight each, and plays out like a high score challenge of sorts. Grabbing bananas, defeating enemies and more adds to your 'beats' with the goal to get as many as possible within the 3 stage run. You can gain more beats by perfoming combos - perfoming as many actions as possible before hitting the ground adds a multiplier. This is tallied when you land gaining tons of points, but lost if you take damage, making holding a big combo a risky proposition. The levels are very cleverly designed around the mechanic. Sure you could run through bananas, jump up a ledge, swing up a giant flower and jump on an enemy OR you could backflip onto a vine, swing off of it, bounce up the lip of the ledge, clap to gather all bananas in mid air, kick a bat into the other bats, latch onto the flower, swing up it, wall jump and bounce on the enemy to get a MUCH higher score. It's fast, fluid and acrobatic. It's great.
The boss fights are a mixed bag - the highlights are the fights against other Kongs (all new and kinda shit characters, but no big deal) which play like a very simplified punch out - dodge their attacks and counter attack. Later ones have patterns you must react to as well. The giant birds are simple enough, and are over quick, and the fights against the hogs have some fun projectile combat. The elephant fights suck though, and take far too long comparatively. You'll note I summed them all up as 'the kongs' or 'the hogs' and thats because every set of 4 worlds has one boss fight against each of these enemy types, just progressively harder. I'd have liked mroe diversity to be honest.
Jungle Beat is an incredibly polished and intuitive platformer despite its unorthodox control scheme. The high score combo mechanic is very compelling and encourages you to keep trying to do better and better on replays, which is good as the game is just a few hours long. If anything, the main issue with the game is that I really wanted more of it, which is a sign of some good design if you ask me.
Märchen Adventure Cotton 100%
Cotton 100% is a Super Famicom cute 'em up where you play as the titular witch Cotton and fly through a magical world destroying everything in your path on a quest to defeat some evil overlord or something which you've been roped into under the promise of sweets (candy for you 'murricans).
Cotton's first home appearance was on PC Engine in the title Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams. From what I understand, Cotton 100% is a slightly remixed version of this game with even cuter graphics (for a Nintendo platform, hurr) but I'm no expert - this is my first time playing the series.
From the outset, you can equip cotton with a set of 3 spells which effect both which supers you can use and which way your options move - for example, if your spell set includes the 'Barrier' spell you can generate a shield by using one of your spell casts, and whilst barrier is selected, your options will form a triangle around you. Switching to the 'Bubble' spell makes a spell which circles out from you hitting enemies but makes your options trail behind you instead. And when I say options, I mean fairies. One will assist Cotton for the whole game, but you'll need to rescue more by defeating enemies to get more of them. You can also get extra spell casts by defeating certain enemies. I went with the spell set that included Fire Dragon, Bubble and Barrier - because I liked the bubble spell's option pattern, and because the Barrier spell is amazing - Cotton dies in one hit normally, but can take about 4 or 5 before dying with a barrier active (and it stays active until broken, even across levels).
In addition to her supers and options, you obviously also have a regular shot that shoots straight forward, and a bomb which drops down in an arc dependent on which way you were moving (it arcs way forwards if you move forwards whilst shooting it). The bombs can't be used whilst shooting and are much slower and weaker, so they're pretty situational. Enemies drop crystals which you can use to build an exp. bar in the bottom corner - when it fills, your weapon power goes up, up to 7 levels. When you die, it'll drop one level, so you don't instantly power all the way down upon death which is nice.
The stages in Cotton are colourful and fun, and all feature both a midboss and an end boss. These vary in difficulty, and not always consistently - the stage 4 midboss is one of the hardest enemies in the whole game for example, and was the only time I died before the final boss. Unfortunately, by that point I had ran out of barriers, and I died 4 more times to that boss. That said, I didn't use any continues as I'd accumulated lots of extra lives, so I managed to 1CC this game (which to be honest, isn't as impressive as it might sound, it's fairly easy I thought).
The game has a lot of quirky little touches, including animated cutscenes with super deformed characters between stages which are fun to watch, but unfortunately hard to follow if you don't speak Japanese. No big deal for a shmup though. The music is bouncy and fun, but despite good melodies it feels a bit lacking - it could use a few extra audio layers on other channels and some better virtual instruments for sure. The game also features a fair amount of voice samples which are actually pretty well done and I understood them even with the Japanese pronunciations of English words. My favourite touch is 'Tea Time' - After you finish a boss, tea rains from the sky and you catch as much as possible to gain points. As a Brit, I can only appreciate such a wonderful dedication to our national drink.
Cotton 100% is a ton of fun, and I definitely want to play Cotton on PC Engine and Cotton 2/Boomerang on Saturn despite them being a touch pricy. If you want to try the series, Cotton 100% is awesome, and it's also the cheapest entry in the series too, so worth a go. I'll probably pass on trying to afford Panorama Cotton though.
There we go guys, if you've gotten to the end, well done you (and well done me for writing this far, jesus).
Next up on my 'To beat' list - I'm trying to finish up my next alphabet game (The Last Story) as well as a few handheld games I've started (Akiba's Trip and Luigi's Mansion 2). I also have my now regular weekend beat to attempt - my plan for this weekend is either Glover or Freak Out (Stretch Panic in the USA).
